From Risk to Resiliency

Dr. William H. Warring has spent 45 award-winning years injecting productive relevancy into both business and educational settings. His efforts in both professions have received local, county, and state-wide recognitions. Along with his wife, ten children...and so far, 15 grandchildren, he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where he writes and conducts educational research.

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsChapter 1: DropoutsWho's Dropping Out?What Do Dropouts Say?What Have We Learned?Chapter 2: A Condition of Benign NeglectDecouplingSchool Design DescriptionsCurriculum & InstructionContinuation School HistoryStudent Performance ExpectationsInstitutional Train WreckLack of ResearchChapter 3: Pathways to ChangeEffective Educational Change ConstructsCultural Mindsets: Central to School ChangeAddressing Teacher AdversityA Teacher's Explanatory StyleTeacher ConcernsCreating Key RelationshipsChanging Staff RelationshipsCreating Community RelationshipAdapting Change Components and InnovationsSynthesizing Practitioners with Innovations External Change Interventions: MushroomsSchool Aims: Happiness in Schools and Classrooms Evaluating ChangeChapter 4: Diffusing Teacher Change ResistanceChange Agents Teacher Resistance ThemesTeacher Resistance: External BarriersDistributive LeadershipDiffusing Resistance Through Communication Beyond Resistance: What if Change Succeeds?Chapter 5: Building a Resiliency-Based ParadigmEducational Resiliency Defined Four TheoriesResiliency Theory School ConnectednessBeginning a Trust-Building Process: ListeningA Sense of Autonomy AltruismBuilding High Internal ExpectationsBelieving in Student ResilienceEffective Teacher Preparation ConstructsProtective Factor DescriptorsLimitations of Resiliency TheorySelf-Efficacy TheoryLife Satisfaction Findings Home Life Satisfaction FactorsSchool-Wide Corrective FactorsEffects of Supportive RelationshipsGratitudeSocial-Cognitive TheoryBonding: An Essential Change AgentHope TheoryMeasuring HopeQ & A: Resiliency-Based Change ConcernsAuthor's NoteReferencesAppendices

Warring’s observations on continuation schools—alternative high school pathways for students not thriving in comprehensive high school settings—are based on his experiences as a continuation school teacher and educational consultant in California. The reform of these schools is desperately needed; in some large urban school districts in California, less than 50 percent of the students graduate from high school. Descriptions of the historical development of these schools and the challenges current students face lead to a discussion of their functions as safety nets, safety valves, or dumping grounds. Warring calls on using a resiliency-based paradigm to develop learners’ self-cognitive practices, self-efficacy, resiliency, and hope. He also discusses strategies for reducing faculty and community members’ resistance to change. School faculty should increase the quality of their interpersonal relationships with students, improve self-perceptions of all community members, promote school-wide adaptive mental practice, and increase opportunities for students to participate in school-sponsored and out-of-school extracurricular activities. . . .Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.